A. L. Buehrer What I Write and Why

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Don't Do The Mirror

People
really struggle with figuring out when and how to describe their characters’
physical appearances. Some people just throw it in there in the middle of the
narrative as a rather long, off-subject aside. Others skip it altogether. But
one of the most common and lazy ways to get the information out there is the
mirror.

So,
you’re in the first scene of your novel. Your character is getting ready to go
somewhere, or just waking up in the morning, or something convenient like that.
So, of course, he or she looks in the mirror. How natural is that?

Well, here comes the unnatural part. For some
reason, we readers are forced to look in the mirror too, and are subjected to a
detailed report of what is reflected there. And (voila) we have our physical description
of the main character.

Here’s what makes it awkward: when you look
in the mirror, what do you see? Of course, you see a rather sickly-looking
sandy-haired girl with long bangs, light freckles and denim-blue eyes, if you
happen to fit that description. But you’ve seen that for years. You’re not
checking to see if your hair-color has changed, or if your eyes are now brown.
You look in the mirror to see if you’re presentable. Or to find out of your eye
is still swollen, like it was yesterday.

You could approach a mirror scene in this
more realistic way, but it still doesn’t solve your problem of trying to describe
your main character. You have to find other ways to do this.

Really,
you have to rely on your own imagination and judgement to make this work out
right, but here are some tips.

·You
can get away with a brief couple of physical attributes mentioned on your
character’s first entrance. Just keep it quick.

·You
can be sneaky and compare you character to somebody else in your story, or
outside it

·People
tend to complain about how they look. Take advantage of this.

·It’s
almost always fine to mention any physical attribute that would be relevant to
the action.

Along
the lines of that last one, as a reader, I’ve always been bored to death by descriptions
of clothing. However, if your character just donned a knit-cap, or needed a
raincoat on a wet day, this is an exception. Likewise, if they have some reason
to be thinking about clothes at the moment, it’s okay to bring attire into the
narrative then, as well.

Really, timing and relevance are important
here. Keep in mind that everything you write in a novel has to have a reason to
be there. Don’t let awkward description scenes trip you up.